


Here Comes the Rain

by Eshne (Morgenn)



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22951357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgenn/pseuds/Eshne
Summary: Suledin wonders why she and Morrigan are participating in the journey to end the blight.
Relationships: Female Mahariel/Morrigan (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 7





	1. Here Comes the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this was previously published on Fanfiction.net and is HELLA OLD.

Though we may travel as one, there are always two camps made for the night: one for us and the other for Morrigan. It had started and remained that since the battle at Ostagar.

The quest was ours to begin with. Morrigan was almost a mercenary, in the simplest terms, who had joined only out of Asha'belannar's insistence. It's your necks, not mine. Her world started and ended in her domain of the Korcari Wilds, and the blight affecting all of Thedas could not make Morrigan turn even her head in response.

Her separate camp proved this aloof detachment.

This night, we stopped to camp on the outskirts of the Brecilian forest. As usual, she waited for us to unload first, and then chose her own spot away from us. Together, yet apart.

Shaking off my thoughts, I blinked away from the camp fire and saw its twin some meters away, where our lone witch was spending her time by candle light. Nearby her semi-supine figure, my Halla was grazing contently.

Feeling sudden moisture on the top of my head, my eyes took to the murky dark sky. My nostrils flared when a rain drop fell from my brow to my nose as I stated, "This will be a downpour."

"Sodding weather," Oghren grumbled, standing up from a crate he had been sitting on, "A dwarf can't live on cold, ruddy bread forever." He scratched his rear, approached the fire, and retrieved from it a slab of hastily cut venison that was skewered on a stick.

Wynne dusted off her robes, remarking, "It would do you much good to stand in the rain shower for half an hour."

"What are you trying to say?" Oghren fished out a brown package from his pack and, licking stray granules of salt off his fingers, proceeded to preserve his red meat.

"Exactly what she means. Just stay downslope from camp when you do," Alistair wrinkled his nose. I pulled away. Dumping my possessions in the tent, I leisurely began strolling. My feet pointed to the direction of the other fire.

As I expected, the rain began to pour. The plip-plop of the drops pattering on the hard trodden earth drowned out Wynne's explanation of the necessity of soap and caused my companions to retreat to their tents' safety with yelps and angry grunts. I kept walking, reveling in the cool air.

At times like these, a bystander would have wondered if we were one party. One party sans an individual? Hunters with vultures following our trail? Without my transit between the separate encampments, we would surely be distinguished as two.

She was one of us. She was not. And she was definitely not a part of Bodahn and Sandal's caravan.

"Aneth ara, Da'assan," I patted the Halla in greeting when I reached him. It belled low from its chest then put one assured leg forward to reach more grass.

Morrigan looked up from under the cover of her fur construct, shielded from the weather. She was propped up against a bundle of pelts as a back rest, with a leather bound tome spread across her lap.

"Suledin," She acknowledged my rain drenched figure, eyes returning to her page. Her revealed sternum rose and fell to her even breathing.

"Morrigan," I nodded, studying her.

She did not respond.

"You are not under any obligation to remain with us," I tried. Whether it was a stated a fact or question, I could not say. My tone remained neutral and my face did not reveal any accusations or curiosity.

"That is an odd observation to say, Dalish. I could say the very same for you." Dalish, not Warden. I had been Dalish for so long and Grey Warden for only a fraction of the time. Nevertheless, here I was, surprised by the name. Morrigan continued, "The Wardens are no more, yet you are still here."

Why was I here? "I've broken tradition by my mere presence here," I thought aloud. So… "Here, I remain." Our Dalish people were the last fragments of the statue that was once Elvhenan and I one of its many chipped pieces.

The sound of a crisp paper turning to the other side. "Breaking tradition keeps you here? Not out of "darkspawn threaten us all"? Surely you jest. Even Oghren stays..." She blanched as if she didn't want to even fill her mind with thoughts of the dwarf. "For reasons far bigger than that."

I felt the rain trickle along my jaw and off my chin. There was no welding stone to stone lest you wished to reform the formation from scratch. "I suppose," I agreed absentmindedly. Yet, "I don't know; were it just a few months ago, I would not have cared for the fate of Ferelden."

"Likewise." A page was turned.

"But?"

"Do not be foolish," she quelled the questions in my heart, instantly. "'Tis nothing more than what you already know." Let's not talk about such things. Let's not talk about why.

"Ah," for 'Why is there the gap between you and the rest of us?' "I see," for 'Why are there two campfires?'

I felt like a fool, but I did not pursue the conversation further. An uncomfortable silence came about between us. Morrigan exhaled to shatter it. "If you have nothing else to say, please take your brute with you and leave me to my peace. That flea ridden dog eats enough of my herbs, as it is. I cannot afford your mount to do the same." She waved me away with her hand.

Da'assan pawed the ground in indignation, but did not move. I smiled sheepishly. "I believe you may have offended the 'brute.' It will not eat your supplies, though I will have a word with the dog."

Morrigan warily glanced at the Halla but replied, "Good." He snorted and trotted a few inches away.

I turned to leave, but my questions burned in my throat, stopping me momentarily.

Morrigan?

Morrigan, what is your purpose here?

Morrigan, enigmatic, beautiful under the rain. Is there something you aren't telling us? Why, Morrigan? Why Morrigan?

Flawed.

"Morrigan, will you not camp to closer with us?"

"With Oghren's lewd stench and Alistair's wit?" She deadpanned.

I let out a chuckle with the breath I did not know I had been holding and a cloud of mist forms.

Morrigan's eyes twinkled ever so slightly. "Is this what you ask these questions?"

"Perhaps." She was just like the rest of us. "Are we not friends?" We were all witches of the Wilds, tainted elves, foul-smelling dwarves, sinners amongst the righteous, misfortunate righteous amongst the sinners, lost souls.

Her smile disappeared as she racked her mind for answers. I wondered if that was the right question to ask. "Friends," the witch repeated, her candle illuminated face turned away from me. "Friendship has nothing to do with whether or not I support your cause. I stay because it suits me so and not because I need your or their company."

By this time, I was completely drenched, but I overlooked it. I pushed back my matted red hair, and wiped my face with the cloth tunic I was clad in. "I enjoy your company."

Snap. Morrigan closed her tome and sat up. My eyes made contact with her incensed molten gold ones. "Suledin," She began, with a tone that started to bite, "there is-"

"Well," I interrupted. I found my way back to her earlier observation of me. "I cannot return to my people empty handed, I guess-"

She stood up, "-no point in enjoying your-"

I spoke louder. "-I intend to be a Warden to its full extent, though I may have been forced into the role."

She stopped.

Under the now heavy rain, I did what I could to wring the water out of clothes. "Good night," I greeted. Feeling her golden eyes burn into my flesh, I trekked back to my tent. It followed me until I disappeared under my tent's flaps.

"…-company, with what I intend to do," Morrigan finished. She looked at the Halla that Suledin had left behind, and inattentively stepped out into the rain to feel for its antlers. He snorted once again, but let her hands roam its keratinous sheath. "Good night, Warden."


	2. Obscurity

Our party treks on a dirt path that leads us to Orzammar. Leliana has been looking my way for quite a while. "What, upon my person, interests you so?" I ask.

Caught red handed, she fidgets. "Forgive me. I have heard much of the Dalish and I've wondered..."

These Shemlen… Despite the urge to bare my teeth, I can understand; we Dalish are all that remain of beautiful Elvhenan and its history, its language, its customs. The era of elves has crumbled and disappeared into obscurity...

"I do not know if they are true, myself," I confess with a sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shemlen: "Quick children", the Elven term for humans  
> Elvhenan: The ancient civilization of elves before their fall to humankind
> 
> I'm smitten with "Lord Charming", an Inuyasha fanfiction written by forthright, that is done in 100 words per chapter. I decided to try my hand at the snippets as well.


	3. Strange

"Your garb is strange," I told her once.

From what I had seen of the Shemlen, Morrigan was the exception. She always commanded such singularity and illuminated the distinction that she was not one of them. To further the situation, she never discouraged the notion that she was an abomination or something along those lines either. Such was the reality of the title 'Witch of the Wilds'; Morrigan was simply in a class all her own.

As such, I brought upon her what others oft did to me: a continued curiosity that resurfaced as the slow rise and ebb of low tides with every new insight and no encouragement on my part. She made no attempt to rebuff them, I noticed, as she made use of this to return the favor. I did not seek to speak of my heritage otherwise, with other company.

"I made do with what I could," said Morrigan simply, understanding that my intentions behind my words were innocently a matter of fact.

I nodded. This, I understood, though the how of implementing the available material still puzzled me. Dalish clans were nomadic at their core; due to such circumstances, we made use of what was around us.

She glanced at me and kept a taut thin line with her mouth as if an ethereal plume of magic was threatening to come forth from her lips to further bolster her already mystical status. "Mother always seemed to have a surplus of men's belts."

Alistair, who had been traveling beside me, overheard our conversation. His hair seemed to stand with skepticism as he commented, "Are you sure they didn't come from the hands of a conniving, witchy witch?"

Morrigan snorted. "Because 'tis very logical that a little girl had anything to do with a company of Templars' trousers, much less their shameless intentions."

He grunted, "Oh, right," half aware of what she had said.

"Oh," Alistair repeated when he let Morrigan's words sink in.

"I'm glad we're clear of any misunderstandings before we continue your unfortunate quest," snapped she, and let silence settle in once more.

"Maker's breath." Alistair had looked positively green for the lingering duration of the day.

Nonetheless, I was not the only one who had the same sentiments about an individual being unique. She too, was taken by curiosity. I indulged Morrigan, knowing that her intentions were innocently a matter of facts.

Later, when I had spoken sparse words to the Elvish goddess Andruil after a successful hunt, Morrigan gestured towards my figure and said, "Dalish, I could say the same for you."

I raised my head questioningly. "I do not know what you mean."

"You are a strange one."

"Like you?"

"And your mount is…," she swiftly looked away to face my companion Halla with an acknowledging brow, "surprisingly responsive to the common tongue."

Da'assan snorted and shook its head as if with indignation.

I gave Morrigan a hint of a smile. "He is quite the strange one."


	4. Warring with the Dead

"I have a wonder, if you'd suffer me to indulge in it."

Suledin blinks.

"Lesser warriors swing clumsy weapons and compensate with boundless enthusiasm."

"That is not a question."

It really isn't. "But you are no lesser warrior," I say. There is a question in that.

"I am glad you think so. Let us carry on." She shifts her pack and walks ever forward while I continue my ruminations.

In the thick of the battle, Suledin has nary an unsteady hand or an uncertain step. Formidable is she to her foes. Her sharpened blades strike true, and lo the opponent before her, be it man, beast, or darkspawn, succumbs to the gravity suddenly too much to bear. Suledin is a warrior who extinguishes the heat and brings about the entropy of the body without a bat of her eyes.

The warrior that a mage would learn to be wary or even fearful of. Not I, though. Not a witch. Not of a warrior that wars with the living.

And yet, there is something about her. 'Tis strange, I think. Dead men's possessions are left to the victor's discretion; Suledin's war spoils are left to Zevran's pockets. The grounds of slaughter are vacated of her as swiftly as they are generated but there is no pretense of honor or deference to the freshly killed.

Perhaps it so because she is not of man's double edged Maker. She prays to her gods for their patronage, but never for the absolving of her wayward ways. For this at least, I would prefer elf over man. She lets me be and in turn, I do not bite.

But there have been times when I wandered long into the evening with a tome in my hands and I heard tossing and wringing of the sheets. Of moans quite unlike the men's in the past who had found mother. It irritated me so.

"Quiet, blasted elf!" I mutter on those nights.

Once, I had sat upon a boulder under the illuminating moon when the noise had ceased.

At the rustle of grass not of the winds' mischief, I turned to see the Dalish settling against my granite throne. She wiped away her sweat onto the moss while heaving with quiet, forceful breaths.

I returned to my readings, removing the staff from my hand.

I thought her a paradox unto herself… but no. No, this made perfect sense. She was also the warrior that warred with the dead. The warrior with her eyes glossy in thought of the yesteryears.

I look at her back while as we journey. Her shoulders are smaller than mine.

She sits in a pensive manner in her moments of reprieve. Next to her tranquil mount, her hands tremble when Suledin runs fingers along the mount's coarse fur.

I do not attempt to start another conversation that day.


End file.
